49ers pledge to resolve run-game issues

In the middle of a response to a question about running back Frank Gore’s season-opening performance, Jim Harbaugh began to utter one of favorite terms before hesitating.

“It was a b-, you guys are probably getting tired of me using that, a blue-collar game for Frank,” Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh clearly wants his team to take on a blue-collar mentality, right down to the shirts on their back. And the Niners appear to have the personnel to, in the manner of a classic no-frills team, run the ball effectively, something Harbaugh emphasized in his seven seasons as a college coach.

But the ground game was surprisingly ineffective against Seattle. Team Blue Collar got pushed around, managing 85 yards on 32 rush attempts (their 2.7 yards per carry was the sixth-lowest mark in the NFL in Week 1).

Today, Gore sounded a familiar circa-2010 (and 2009 …) refrain in the locker room: The Seahawks stacked the box and he had little room to roam (59 yards, 22 carries).

“It was tough, man,” said Gore, who has his only two 200-yard games against the Seahawks. “But we knew they were going to come in here and try to stop the run because we’d been successful for so many years against them on the ground. Just got to get better. And we will.”

So what happened? The Niners’ conservative 20-pass-attempt attack was clearly a factor as they didn’t make Seattle re-think throwing eight men in the box.

On Monday, Harbaugh, not one to even mildly criticize his players — or position groups — in the media, didn’t offer much insight on the run-game issues.

Left tackle Joe Staley, though, was more specific today.

“I think it comes down to coming off the ball a little bit better,” Staley said. “It wasn’t anything schematically or anything overly troubling. It was just one guy getting beat on a certain block. And you have to all 11 guys to make a running play be successful. It’s something that’s definitely going to be able to be taken care of this week in practice. (We) hope for a big game.”